


carry me home

by touchtheskye



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Snowed In, Tumblr Prompt, johnsonandcoulson, skoulsonfest2k16, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:59:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5842501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchtheskye/pseuds/touchtheskye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reckless & Desperate spend a long, cold night in a budget hotel. </p>
<p>(Written for Daisy/Coulson RomFest 2k16. Day 4, prompt: late night chats.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	carry me home

Daisy’s never been a particularly big fan of snow, even under the best of circumstances.

This is all her fault too, that’s the worst part. If she’d left with the rest of the team on the jet, she’d be in her own bed already. She feels stupid thinking about it now, how she’d been so determined to get to the hospital and check on the civilians. 

And it _was_ stupid. She knows she could have checked remotely from the jet. It would have been easy for her, hacking the hospital’s database and skimming through the admissions forms. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to see them with her own eyes, that she needed to know they were okay.

Bringing down a whole building on Hydra had felt good, raw power surging through her as she shattered brick and mortar. Then a civilian ran past her a moment later, in tears and coughing on the smoke, and her sense of accomplishment evaporated. 

She’d never felt so guilty about something she’d done in the field. She hadn’t even spared a thought for civilian bystanders outside, hadn’t even taken a second to consider the consequences, consumed with rage like some sort of vengeful monster as she targeted the southeast corner with her powers.

The rest of the team left with May on the jet, but Coulson came with her. He hadn’t said anything, just tossed her the keys to the SUV and hopped into the passenger seat.

Sure enough, there hadn’t been anything worse than a few cuts and bruises, some smoke inhalation. A waste of time. Her guilt settled into something softer, less caustic, a more general sense of gloom.

The snow started before they got to the hospital, and then _really_ started when they left. Lake effect, according to the radio, arctic vortex? Polar something? Whatever. It’s snowing a lot, and the driving conditions are deteriorating steadily.

Coulson doesn’t even seem bothered, which makes it worse.

At least it’s pretty. The snow is coming down heavily now, big clumps twirling clumsily in every direction.

They’re nearly two hours into the six-hour drive when the weather starts to get really bad. Blizzard conditions, low visibility, blowing snow. The SUV is equipped to handle pretty rough terrain, but neither of them can see two carlengths ahead.

Coulson pulls off the highway and Daisy is struck by how quiet everything is, how all the road noise is muted, blanketed in a thick layer of snow. It seems later than it actually is. They stop at the first hotel they find.

They’re apparently the only guests at this hotel in the middle of nowhere, judging by how empty the parking lot is. There are three other cars, probably staff, covered in several hours’ accumulation of snow.

She’s only half-listening as Coulson puts in a call to Mack and May, explaining the situation. May offers to come get them in the jet, Coulson tells her it’s unnecessary. Mack wishes them a good night, tells them to drive safe in the morning, and signs off.

The snow is deep when she steps out of the car; she can’t even see her boots. Wordlessly, Daisy hefts a gear bag onto her shoulder and starts the long, slow trudge towards the lobby.

She’s barely made it four feet when a snowball hits her squarely between the shoulder blades. It disintegrates on impact, leaving her standing in a cloud of snow with her mouth hanging open.

She rounds on her attacker just in time to catch a glimpse of Coulson ducking behind the SUV for cover, laughing. Another one whizzes by her head and she dives behind the closest other car, scooping up some snow. 

This isn’t great snow for a fight, it’s too light, too fluffy, but that doesn’t appear to be deterring Coulson. He lobs another one at her. It misses by a mile, and she can hear him laughing even harder from behind the SUV, like his pitiful aim is something hilarious.

The sound of his laughter is something she hasn’t heard in weeks, maybe a month.

_This is crazy_ , she thinks, _he’s cracked_ , but she can’t help the determined grin that spreads over her face as she returns fire. She hears a dry _piff_ as her snowball connects with Coulson’s jacket, followed by his gleeful laugh ringing out into the night.

She snipes him in the back of the head as he’s crouched low to make another snowball, and the force of the impact knocks his hat off. Now she’s the one laughing, her breath fogging in the cold air. He retaliates with a well-aimed shot and she instinctively vibrates the snowball into a puff of flakes before it reaches her.

“You’re _cheating!_ ” His voice sounds younger, boyish. He doesn’t seem particularly upset about her unfair advantage. He sounds delighted, actually, like catching her using her powers against him in a snowball fight is something amazing.

The guilt she’s felt about her powers all day gives way to joy. He launches another volley of snow at her, watching in an awestruck kind of way as she deflects them effortlessly. Daisy feels invincible like this, blowing up snowballs in an abandoned hotel parking lot under the cover of a blizzard.

Coulson eventually calls for a truce, waving his snow-covered hat at her across the lot like the proverbial white flag.

They drag themselves into the hotel lobby and check in, covered head-to-toe in the slushy remnants of battle. The concierge pulls a face at the growing puddle at their feet and Daisy pretends not to notice.

The room is actually kind of shitty, an outdated Queen suite with a fold-out couch, but it feels so good to shuck her sodden jacket and boots somewhere warm and dry. Coulson drops his bag and turns to her, face wet with melted snowflakes.

“Dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can find.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I–” He glances at her outerwear, lying in a soaked heap next to her equally soaked boots. “You stay here. I won’t be long.”

Coulson leaves, and Daisy decides to shower. The gear bag is damp but its contents are thankfully bone-dry. She gratefully digs out sweats and a t-shirt to change into, then strips off her wet clothes. She steps under the hot water, thinking absently about Coulson’s laugh as she washes her hair.

Cozy and warm and showered, suddenly being stranded at a mediocre Ramada Inn with Coulson doesn’t seem so bad. She tests the mattress of the fold-out; it sags and the springs dig into her back, but she nearly falls asleep anyway.

Soon Coulson returns with gas station hot chocolate and two dry-looking sandwiches, an inch of fresh snow perched on top of his hat. They eat in companionable silence, sitting cross-legged on the fold-out’s thin mattress. She doesn’t realize until it’s too late that she’s kind of been staring at him while she chews and swallows, thinking idly about how cute his hair looks, flattened in some places and sticking up in others.

The hot chocolate is okay, but it’s markedly improved by the addition of a tiny bottle of tequila from the bar fridge. Her idea, naturally. Coulson eyes her skeptically as she tips a little glug into each of their drinks.

“It’ll warm you up,” she insists, watching as he takes a tentative sip. He utters a surprised noise of approval and it makes her smile.

“Not bad.”

“Right? Thanks for getting dinner, by the way.”

“Dinner is maybe a strong word, but you’re welcome. It was the least I could do.”

“Yeah, well. Let he who is without sin cast the first snowball, or something.”

They drink their hot chocolate, and she waits for him to say more, but he seems content to sip in silence.

“So.” She’s never been very good at waiting.

“So?” Coulson blinks at her, all innocence.

“Are you going to tell me what that snowball fight was about?”

He sighs and puts his drink down on the table. She watches as he licks some chocolate froth from his upper lip.

“You looked miserable. I couldn’t help it.”

“So you decided to cheer me up by nailing me in the back with a snowball? What are you, twelve?”

It comes out harsher than she means it to, but he laughs sheepishly all the same. She feels an unexpected pang of tenderness for the twelve-year-old he must have been, once.

“You have a nice laugh,” she blurts, and Coulson’s sheepishness is replaced by a slightly tequila-y smile. She feels her ears getting hot.

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do.” She can hear the edge in her own voice, how defensive she sounds. “I just – I didn’t realize how much I missed it. It’s been a while.”

He looks at her strangely and for a moment she regrets having said anything.

She hadn’t realized how close they were sitting until now. He notices too, she can feel the difference in the vibrations coming off his skin – there’s tension that wasn’t there before. Suddenly the room feels smaller, too warm.

She’s thought about Coulson like this before, of course she has. They’ve always been close and kind of… intense? But she’s never considered it seriously, hasn’t allowed herself to.

She downs the rest of her hot chocolate and tequila, shaking herself mentally. _This is Coulson_ , she reminds herself. Whatever she’s sensing from him is completely different from her own tense mixture of embarrassment and arousal, it has to be. 

She turns to say something and his lips are on hers.

It feels incredible, although objectively it’s one of the least provocative kisses she’s ever had. Short, chaste, a gentle brush of warm lips. It’s over before she can kiss him back.

Daisy is staring, she knows. It’s just there are all these little details up close, the curve of his eyelashes, the shadow of his stubble, the pink fullness of his lower lip.

She’s having trouble reconciling the gruff, distant Coulson of the past few months with the man sitting in front of her, this guy who starts snowball fights that he can’t possibly win, who laughs, who kisses her impulsively and without warning. 

He looks like he can hardly believe it himself, in fairness. 

That look of disbelief persists, even as she cups his face in her hands and kisses him. Daisy moves slowly, softly, doesn’t want to push. With the lightest sweep of her tongue against his lips his mouth opens for her, warm and wet and responsive, meeting every scrape of her teeth or flick of her tongue with a little sigh.

He’s still looking at her like he’s not sure this is real when she stops kissing him. She takes his hands, flesh and prosthetic, and leads him over to the actual bed – she’d rather not do this on the fold-out, a girl has to have standards.

Daisy flattens her palm against Coulson’s shirt, and even without her powers she’s pretty sure she’d be able to feel how hard his heart is pounding. She leans in to kiss him again but stops just short of his lips, allows herself a little smile at the way his heartbeat accelerates under her hand and his hot breath tickles her face. Instead of kissing him she pushes on his chest, and he falls back against the bed with a little _oomph_. 

She straddles him in one lithe movement and captures his lips in a crushing, obscene kiss, all teeth and tongue and heat. There’s no trace of the unhurried tenderness from earlier, and Coulson responds with a ragged moan against the onslaught of her kiss. _And god_ , Coulson is a fantastic kisser, how did she not suspect all along, that underneath all his fastidiousness he would be this _dirty_ , this desperate with his mouth.

He grinds up against her and the friction is both delicious and not enough. She scrambles to rid herself of her sweatpants, kicking them off and fumbling with his zipper. She doesn’t bother with her shirt or his, just tears his pants and briefs far enough out of the way to get a hand around him, squeezing. Coulson arches up into her hand with a hiss of pleasure.

His eyes never leave hers as she lowers herself onto him. She goes slow, savours the stretch, the way his breath hitches and his pupils dilate, the way he says her name when she’s taken him fully inside of her.

She sets an easy pace, rocking her hips slowly, stroking her clit with two fingers in slick little circles. She watches Coulson’s face as she touches herself, notes with a shudder the way his jaw tenses and his tongue wets his lips, like he wants to taste her. She imagines what it would be like, Coulson’s face pressed between her thighs, jaw working furiously, and the thought alone is enough to make her muscles clench involuntarily around him.

Coulson lifts himself up so his chest is pressed flush against hers and she moans at the sudden change in angle. She’s close, she’s so close, and the gasp that leaves his throat as he slips deeper inside her nearly makes her come right then and there.

He picks up the pace, and she can tell that he’s close too, his grip tightening on her hips. A final sharp thrust, up and _in_ , and she’s gone, crying out in pleasure against his skin. He follows her a moment later, saying her name again and again as he comes, gasping as he fills her with hot, desperate spurts.

A few seconds later – possibly twenty minutes, actually, she really has no idea – she feels the bed move as Coulson gets up. He says nothing, and while she can’t muster enough energy to feel panic, her body still humming from her orgasm, her heart still sinks a little as she hears him enter the bathroom.

She hears the tap running and then, miraculously, Coulson returns with a warm cloth and a towel. She watches in confusion through half-lidded eyes as he gently wipes the mess they’ve made from her skin, following the soothing touch of the towel with feather-light kisses.

Drowsily, she notices Coulson turning off the lights and crawling under the covers next to her. She has a nagging feeling that they should talk about this, or something, maybe, but the call to sleep is too strong. It’s funny, she’s not usually this tired after sex, rarely falls asleep immediately afterwards, but here she is, lulled to near-unconsciousness by the warmth of Coulson’s body pressed up against her side.


End file.
